Authors: Kevin Emerson
Breakout (11 page)
Then I get back to
LF
where I am on Level 19 and it’s the Battle of the Bulge, December 1944, and we are trying to cut off the German supply lines in the snow and cold and the afternoon goes by. I play until dark, but I don’t hear from Keenan.
After dinner, there’s still no word. I think about getting out Merle and working on the song some more, maybe finding some high notes to record as a second guitar track that could kind of float in space above the main riff, but I don’t. I’m tapped out or something. It’s like there’s no music left in me.
Instead I sit on the couch while Erica is watching that same princess movie again.
I have my notebook and
Feed
with me, and after a while I actually read the chapter to see how it works, and then do the stupid wish list.
1. Go to New York City with Keenan and our band. We will be in a basement club with the concrete walls painted red and there won’t be a stage except for the cracked cement floor that’s rubbery with old gum and stains. The lights will be on us and we will be rocking, and I won’t be
off to the side just playing guitar while someone else sings—it will be me in the middle. And I will be under one of those blue kinds of spotlights they always use just for the singer, and it will feel like the most natural thing ever. We will slam the chords to the Flying Aces section, and I will scream out my words as sweat drips down my face, the guitar wailing, my voice warped and spun and folded by the cool effects that the soundman with the tattooed arms and like thirty piercings will be adding, and the crowd will be in a frenzy, pumping their fists to the rebel refrain, and it will be everything and all and now.
2. Own a Lamborghini. (I wasn’t kidding, Ms. Rosaz.)
3. Can we go to Antarctica? Like on a converted Soviet icebreaker, and see the ice and the southern stars and then set up and shoot a music video there, like a whole thing about a yeti? And when the skeptical director points out that the yeti is actually from Nepal, we will explain that,
duh
, we know. The backstory of our vision is that a yeti was brought to the South Pole by the Nazis as part of a secret supersoldier testing program, and in the video, Keenan will play the part of a ruthless doctor, and Valerie will be the prison guard who takes pity on me, and of course in the end we’ll save
the yeti too. And also have a killer snowboard chase sequence.
4. Complete a half triathlon, where you run and swim and bike but not as much as a real triathlon where you end up crapping on yourself.
5. Eat a muffin without counting.
“Here,” I say, and show my mom, but I don’t stick around for her to act like she won. Bottom line: at least it’s done.
Later, she comes up to my room and hands back the notebook. “This is really good,” she says. “I’m glad you did that.”
This seems to put an official end to yesterday’s battle, and I note, silently this time, that my dad’s earlier threat of taking away
extra activities
has still not been cashed in. So Arts Night is still on.
“Yeah” is all I say to respond. But then Mom doesn’t leave. She stands there for another minute. I hear her sniffle. “What?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “You’re just so grown-up, that’s all. Those dreams in your list … the band, the muffin …” She sniffs again. “They’re just very different from when you were little and you wanted to take a vacation to the moon.”
I don’t like to hear Mom cry. The sound fills me with the same nervous worry it has since I can remember. And yet I
almost tell her that I don’t feel grown-up. And what is it with parents being sad about us growing up? It was their idea to have us. They knew what would happen.
“I didn’t realize you wanted to run a triathlon,” she adds.
“Mom, it’s just a list.”
“I know.” She nods, then wipes at her face. “Okay. Good night, kiddo.”
“See ya.”
I have an urge, like we should hug or something, like that would be good and when was the last time that happened? But I don’t move and she leaves and closes the door.
I sit there for a minute, wondering how I’m supposed to deal with sad Mom and angry Mom. Does she love me or is she disappointed in me?
I grab my phone and look for a response from Keenan. Still nothing.
I can’t believe the whole day has gone by without a reply. Maybe he hates it. If he does, that will make it easier to change the lyrics. But wouldn’t he be wrong? It was good, wasn’t it? Enough time has passed since I made the recording that I’m starting to doubt. And I don’t want to listen to it again, because what if I’ve been completely wrong about it this whole time? I wish I had some feedback.
I send yet another text—
Report in, soldier
!!—and then Dad offers to take me to the new James Bond movie, so I go.
The movie is pretty good, especially the chase scenes and gadgets. And there’s a girl who’s super hot and obviously a double agent. But afterward Keenan still hasn’t responded.
The Crowd GroansIt’s Sunday afternoon and I am hanging out watching football just after the early game is over and the Seahawks have stomped another hapless foe on the road. The late games haven’t started yet so it’s highlights (which is kind of the best part anyway), when Keenan finally calls.
“Hey,” he says in his mumbly Keenan way.
“Where have you been?” I ask him, and what I am dying to know is if he heard the song and if he liked it or what but then he is saying:
“Me and Skye broke up.”
Whoa.
“You did?” I ask. “What happened?”
“She was really mad about that whole Vera thing,” says Keenan, “because she wanted us to go to Red Robin with Meron and Katie. Then when you bailed, I said we could do her plan but then it was too late for some reason and she just went with them and I ended up doing nothing and then
when she texted me yesterday morning, she said we were too different.”
“That’s it?” I ask.
“I guess,” says Keenan. “She says I always choose my friends over hers.”
“Yeah, but I’m your bandmate. It’s different.”
Keenan just sighs. “And I guess last Tuesday, I got annoyed at her chewing gum while we were watching a movie. I don’t know, I don’t even remember.”
“Huh.” Keenan sounds actually depressed. I’ve never really heard him this way. “So she broke up with you over
text
?”
“Yeah, but shut up, you got dumped in a drink line.”
“True.”
For a second I imagine a big crowd watching a Jumbotron and groaning because Keenan and Skye were some kind of record. And really, even though they were super-annoying to be around as a third wheel, they also seemed to like being with each other and sometimes you felt like there was a Hollywood sound track around them or something, like they would stick together in high school and go to the same college and all that stuff.
But whatever. Right now I know what a friend is supposed to do, and that’s say, “Well, forget about her. She’s annoying anyway. You’re better off without her. Just think of all the girls we’ll meet at shows.”
“Yeah,” says Keenan halfheartedly.
“Plus she always has all these opinions all the time and it’s impossible to deal with.”
“Yeah,” Keenan says again.
“Also,” I say, “she’s got a big nose,” except that’s barely true and I don’t really totally believe the other stuff either but right now I’m just trying to help.
“Ha,” says Keenan. Finally he perks up. “So …”
“What?”
He makes a little chuckling sound. Suddenly he’s all mischievous.
“What?” I ask. “The Hawks? The running game could have been better but a win is a win.”
“You’re funny,” says Keenan. Now he sounds like he is grinning big.
“What?!”
“Come on,” says Keenan. “The
song
.”
“Huh?” I say.
“Wait … you really don’t know?”
“Don’t know … what?”
“Did you ignore the hundred emails from BandSpace?”
I’ve been on and off my email all weekend and haven’t really gotten anything. “What are you talking about?”
“Okay …,” he says, kinda laughing like he thinks I’m joking. “Seriously?”
I am starting to get nervous. “What emails from BandSpace?” I ask.
“About the song!” says Keenan. “Comments and plays and downloads. You haven’t been getting those?”
“No.” I am starting to decode at least some of what he is talking about. I set up the BandSpace page to send emails to our Rusty Soles email account but then never set up forwarding to my normal account. I used to check the band account a ton back in the spring and summer, but then we barely got any messages anymore and checking it was depressing and so I basically forgot about it. “What are the comments about?”
Keenan makes a big exhaling sound. “You need to see for yourself.”
“Okay, fine.” I start upstairs to look on my computer. “What happened?” I ask Keenan. “Did somebody find ‘Star People’ and like it?” I can’t imagine why people would suddenly be finding our song from last year’s Spring Arts Night. It hasn’t gotten a single play or download since August.
“I’m not saying anything,” says Keenan.
I get upstairs and I am feeling really nervous all of a sudden. We always hoped that more people would discover “Star People.” (By the way, that’s Sadie’s title,
not
mine.) I guess it’s cool if people have now. Better late than never.
I log into the Rusty Soles account, and …
Whoa
.
There are all these messages in the inbox that either begin with “New Comment on Your BandSpace Profile!” or “Check it: A fan downloaded your music!”
“No way,” I mumble to Keenan. I start to scroll down and … this is crazy. The whole first page of the inbox is full and that’s
fifty messages
, all from the last day and a half. I click Next and see the second page of the inbox and there are fifty more messages. I click again. Forty-three more. That’s 143 messages. I click on the first one. It’s a “comment” about the song and the comment reads:
2:07pm 11/15: Maya42 says:
Yeah!!!! love it!!! :)
Okay …
But then I notice the first line of the email:
New Comment About Breakout!
“Hey,” I say, “what is ‘Breakout’?” but the nerve fireworks are going off inside.
Maybe I already know the answer.
“Your new tune,” Keenan says. “The one you sent Friday night.”
Keenan’s words hit my chest like ordnance going off. It’s like back in
LF
Level 17 when you’re sleeping in the pub
where Greta, the hot German barmaid, let you hide out as you make your way toward Allied lines, and you wake up to the sound of an air raid beginning all around you. Sound seems to get pushed beyond an invisible wall, and there is just smoke and the ringing in your ears.
Suddenly my throat is tight. “Whoa,” I say. “Wait. You put that
up
?”
“Yeah,” says Keenan, “ ’cause it rocked! And also because I was mad at Skye and feeling crappy about all that, trapped, you know, just like you sang about.”
“But it was just a demo.…”
“I know, but I put some bass on it and it sounded kinda great. So, I uploaded it Friday night and I meant to tell you but then I’ve been dealing with the breakup all weekend, but I figured you’d get all the emails anyway so it would be this awesome surprise. I can’t believe you didn’t know until now!”
“You put up the tune.…” I am tapping like crazy, getting myself to the BandSpace page for the Rusty Soles and then there it is, “Breakout,” a second song at the top of our music player.
The song autoloads and so I am just staring at it like an idiot and it starts to play and there’s the quarter-note kick drum and the Killer G riff and
no way
, that’s me singing and it sounds even crazier as a low-quality MP3 through the tiny computer speakers and I immediately want to sing it over, better, but also I cannot believe this because now I am understanding what exactly this means and what exactly I did and what Keenan did and now I am seeing the three numbers that are listed beside the song:
Comments: 47
Downloads: 96
Plays: 2,384
“Holy crap!” I shout into the phone.
Two thousand three hundred and eighty-four plays
.
“I know, right?” Keenan says, and he sounds like he is psyched despite the breakup and I think I am psyched too but I can’t tell because it’s like everything inside just got five notches too tight.
“I gotta go,” I say, and hang up.
This is insane.
TWO THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FOUR PLAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I try to remind myself of the things you read online: how some of the plays are inadvertent and so the number of people who actually listen is less than the number you see but there are
only like three hundred kids in our entire school so where are all these listeners coming from?